AS A POLITICAL FORCE llj 



of taxation as the necessities of the State and Nation will 

 permit." l 



Numerous other resolutions on federal taxation might be 

 mentioned, such as one adopted by the Ohio State Grange in 

 1873 in favor of an income tax, a subject which was taken up 

 by the National Grange at the very end of the decade; 2 and 

 one by the Alabama State Grange, requesting the return of the 

 cotton tax collected during the years 1865-67 ; 3 but enough 

 examples have been given to show that the deciding factor in 

 determining the action of a grange in such matters was generally 

 the financial interests of the individual Grangers, and when 

 these differed, as they were almost sure to in the National 

 Grange, made up of delegates from all parts of the country, it 

 was impossible to bring any effective influence to bear upon 

 Congress. May not the diversity of interests within the class, 

 due in the main to the great extent of the country, be rightly 

 considered as the principal cause for the failure of all attempts, 

 not only on the part of the agricultural class but of other classes 

 as well, to become effectively united forces in national politics ? 



There were, however, a number of propositions, for national 

 legislation on subjects pertaining more directly to agriculture 

 toward which the attitude of the Patrons of Husbandry was more 

 nearly unanimous and their influence correspondingly greater. 

 One of the most important of these was the project for the 

 advancement of the federal bureau of agriculture to the rank 

 of a regular department of the government, presided over by 

 a member of the president's cabinet. This subject was first 

 brought forward in a series of resolutions adopted by the National 

 Grange at its tenth session in November, 1876, and steps were 

 taken to enlist the assistance, not only of all state and local 

 granges, but of unafnliated farmers and planters as well, in a 

 campaign for the proposition. From this time forth not a 

 session of the National Grange passed by without the adoption 



1 New Hampshire State Grange, Proceedings, v (1878). 



2 Iowa State Grange, Proceedings, iv (1873); National Grange, Proceedings, 

 xiv. 91 (1880). 



3 Alabama State Grange, Proceedings, ii (1874). 



